


A Soft Prologue

by mongrelmind



Category: RYC | Reverse Yi City - kevinkevinson, 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV), 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Modern AU, Past life, drink for every time the author relishes in the dramatic irony of a statement, nie huaisang will Not be happy about this, u-haul nieyao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:00:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26160775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mongrelmind/pseuds/mongrelmind
Summary: The first time Nie Mingjue kisses Meng Yao, he doesn’t know who his father is, and Meng Yao doesn’t know Nie Mingjue has a little brother, and neither of them know a lot of important information that would, if they let it, irrevocably change everything between them.But right now, in this moment, that doesn’t matter.In which Meng Yao and Nie Mingjue completely fail at going on a date and experience some reincarnation firsts.
Relationships: Mèng Yáo | Jīn Guāngyáo/Niè Míngjué
Comments: 70
Kudos: 432
Collections: NieYao Faves, NieYao Month





	A Soft Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kevinkevinson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kevinkevinson/gifts).



> Casey let me write Meng Yao and Nie Mingjue's first not-quite-date for their [modern reincarnation AU ](https://twitter.com/kevinkevinsonnn/status/1238209485824503808?s=20/html-link.htm) and I came out with this monstrosity. Because, to paraphrase cardiamachina's stucky quote they deserve a soft prologue. They are good people (sort of) and they've suffered/will suffer enough.
> 
> Big thanks, as always, to Fru, porn doctor and world's best beta, and to Casey, generally all around awesome.
> 
> If you squint, all the dramatic irony reads like fluff really.

_Actually_ , you said _Love, for you,  
_ _is larger than the usual romantic love. It’s like a religion. It’s terrifying.  
_

_Noone_ _will ever want to sleep with you._ _  
_ \- Richard Siken

  
  


The first time Nie Mingjue kisses Meng Yao, they’ve seen each other no more than three times and haven’t even gone on a proper date. 

The first time Nie Mingjue kisses Meng Yao, he doesn’t know who his father is, and Meng Yao doesn’t know Nie Mingjue has a little brother, and neither of them know a lot of important information that would, if they let it, irrevocably change everything between them. 

But right now, in this moment, that doesn’t matter. 

What matters is how Nie Mingjue pulls Meng Yao against him in the middle of the sidewalk, not even a block away from his stupid Starbucks, licks into his mouth and thinks _there you are_ . It’s a nonsense thought which he quickly attributes to the way Meng Yao seems to know exactly when to push him, when to draw back enough to let Nie Mingjue feel in control, where to touch him. _There you are, I've been waiting for you, two thousand years were_ nothing _, I missed you so much_. Nie Mingjue ignores the clamouring in his brain, makes himself pull back, looks down at Meng Yao's upturned face, and smiles rather helplessly. 

(Huaisang had warned him about the perils of quickly formed affections. _When you start dating_ , Huaisang had said bitterly, sprawled on the couch, mouth stretched around a spoonful of nutella. _Remember that no one cares for emotional investment these days. It’s all_ irony _and_ keeping things chill. 

Nie Mingjue had nodded, not because he understood, exactly, but because Nie Huaisang had always understood romance better than he did. Still, the advice had stuck with him, buzzing around his head as he got ready for his first date with Meng Yao, resolved to keep it all easy, keep it light and casual... 

But that was before Meng Yao had smirked up at him, challenging and playful, shining dark eyes and dimples and just a hint of sharpness under sweetness. 

Meng Yao had taken Nie Mingjue’s challenge, had twisted it around, slipped infatuation like a barbed arrow past the stitches of Nie Mingjue’s shirt and straight to his heart. 

“Am I casual?” Meng Yao had asked and Nie Mingjue found it impossible to lie, even to himself. 

Huaisang would understand, Nie Mingjue thought as he pulled Meng Yao in for their first kiss. There was just _something_ about Meng Yao that felt familiar, felt right. Huaisang would _love_ him.)

"What if we skipped dinner?" he asks, his voice sounding strained and alien even to his own ears.

"Oh, so I’m not casual but I _am_ easy?" Meng Yao fires back quickly, his fingers still tangled up in Nie Mingjue's braided hair. 

”Don’t know about easy,” Nie Mingjue says. “After that kiss I think I’d prefer you hard.”

Meng Yao’s hand twitches in his hair, pulling his braid as he laughs, a short burst of sound that is completely unrehearsed, rough in a way that doesn’t fit with Meng Yao’s usual polish. 

“That’s rather presumptuous of you, Dr Mingjue,” Meng Yao says. Nie Mingjue wants to bite the dimples off his cheeks. He wants to lift him up and take him home and get him naked and kiss him until neither of them can form coherent thoughts. He wants Meng Yao’s hands in his hair the way they are now, tugging, almost pulling, as Nie Mingjue takes him in his mouth and sucks him off. 

“You should hear the stuff I’m not saying,” Nie Mingjue replies, because he can’t really tell this man he wants to fall on his knees and lick him open until he’s begging for it. That’s not something you say after three conversations - has it really only been three? It feels like a lifetime - not something you say before you’ve even gone on a proper date. 

Nie Mingjue tightens his arm around Meng Yao's waist almost subconsciously, pulling him up on his toes and almost off the ground. Meng Yao _squeaks_ , tugging at Nie Mingjue's braid in a way that's almost painful. Nie Mingjue does not care to investigate the sudden wave of fondness in his heart that is absolutely too fast to make an appearance so early in their relationship. 

_Too intense, da-ge,_ he imagines Huaisang saying. _That’s just going to scare the boy away. Keep it casual._

But Meng Yao is not casual. They’ve already danced around the truth of this statement, the inevitability of their connection. Nie Mingjue somehow, impossibly, knew this from the start, from the second Meng Yao had yelled at him in the hospital. 

"Brute," Meng Yao says, face pressed in the crook of Nie Mingjue’s neck. “You can’t lift me up like that, I’m taller than you.” 

"Are you?" Nie Mingjue laughs, and puts him down again, holding him at arm’s length. It is the farthest apart their bodies have been for a record five minutes. Mingjue is not a huge fan. 

He brings his hand to the top of Meng Yao’s head then to himself, measuring meticulously. Meng Yao watches him tight-lipped, as if hiding a smile. When Nie Mingjue’s hand finally rests against his neck, no higher than his chin, he raises an eyebrow at Meng Yao. 

“Don’t know how you stand it,” Meng Yao says, deadpan. “Being so much shorter than me.”

“I’m going to pick you up and carry you all the way back to my flat,” Nie Mingjue threatens. Meng Yao’s eyes are dark, heavy lidded, smiling. 

“You couldn’t possibly lift me,” he says innocently, “I am _so_ much bigger than you, after all.” 

Nie Mingjue, gone, too far gone, sorry Huaisang, just laughs, pulling Meng Yao close and up until they’re pressed together and kissing again. 

❀

The first time Nie Mingjue made Meng Yao arch his back and cry out in pleasure, the earth had moved, the stars had winked out of their fixed spots in the sky, and Nie Mingjue found himself immediately following Meng Yao’s release with his own, never mind the fact that neither of them had so much as looked at his cock for at least a few minutes. 

Okay, maybe only one of those statements was objectively true but still, according to Huaisang’s fancy dead white philosophers, life was nothing but a collection of highly subjective and scientifically unprovable experiences in which case Mingjue was right. The earth? Moved. His world? Shaken. The man in his bed? _Staying_. 

He collapsed on the bed next to Meng Yao, the both of them silent for a second, as the world around them was destroyed and remade every time they blinked. 

“What the fuck,” Meng Yao says, sliding his fingers between Nie Mingjue’s sticky ones and squeezing. 

Meng Yao sounds about as breathless as Nie Mingjue feels, at least. Nie Mingjue blinks the sweat away from his eyes and draws Meng Yao closer to him, feeling his warm breath over his heart, his smaller body a solid presence against his side, like a missing limb, returned. 

Usually, Nie Mingjue's brain goes quiet and fuzzy after an orgasm. He considers himself relatively well versed in the act, knows what he wants, how to get it, how to act around his partner afterwards. Just because he doesn’t have time to date does not mean he’s lived like a monk. He doesn't usually feel moved to ask people to marry him after a handful of encounters, no matter how good the sex was. Sex was just sex was just sex. 

Usually. 

"That was good," he says, diplomatically. An understatement but a safe one, to satisfy the desire growing like an ever-cresting wave in Nie Mingjue’s body. 

Meng Yao hides his face against Nie Mingjue's side with a groan, his hand reaching out across Nie Mingjue's torso, pulling him closer as if he wants them to take up as little space as possible, wants them crushed together, sweat and bodily fluids be damned. 

"For some reason I didn't expect you to be so cuddly," Nie Mingjue says and regrets it instantly when Meng Yao freezes against him. 

Meng Yao quietly pulls his arm away again, pulls his body back into himself. It’s less than an inch of space between them but it still somehow makes a difference, makes Nie Mingjue want to take his tongue out, nail an iron gag into his mouth so he never says anything wrong again. 

“I’m sorry,” he says quickly. “I didn’t mean it as a criticism.”

Meng Yao doesn’t relax, the body next to him still stiff and uncomfortable around the edges, so different from how it melted in delight earlier. When he’s stressed, the bones under Meng Yao’s skin feel more pointed, his cheekbones and jawline sharp as glass, his smile a knife. Nie Mingjue shouldn’t know this already. He shouldn’t be able to read a stranger’s mood from the curve of a shoulder, the angle of a bony elbow. 

But he does. He tries not to think about what that means.

His arm is still slung around Meng Yao’s shoulders and he runs it down his back, half expecting there to be long hair. There isn’t, Meng Yao’s hair is cut short, barely long enough for him to tug, short enough that when Nie Mingjue brushes his fingers against his nape the hair there is scratchy. Fun to rub. 

He must have done something right, because Meng Yao lets out a soft sound and snuggles close to him again, hiding his face against Nie Mingjue’s torso. 

“That feels good,” he says, pressing a kiss next to Nie Mingjue’s nipple. “More of that and less freaking out about a little post-coital hug, please.”

Nie Mingjue laughs, squeezing Meng Yao closer until he can feel teeth against his skin, until he knows without looking that if he were to sneak a peek right now, he’d see deep dimples and bright eyes. 

“Enough, enough,” Meng Yao says, twisting Nie Mingjue’s nipple, hard. “You don’t have to squeeze the breath out of me. Not a great look, murdering your date.”

“We never even went on a date,” Nie Mingjue says, his words outlining an edge, sharpening a blade. “I don’t think you count as my date.”

“What _would_ you call me then?” Meng Yao asks, a challenge. A dropped glove.

Nie Mingjue looks down at him, naked skin shining with sweat, hair falling in his eyes and doesn’t let himself think the word love. Doesn’t let himself think a lot of words to go with that. 

“Definitely not a casual acquaintance, we’ve established that,” he says, like a coward. 

Meng Yao’s eyebrow twitches, a barely there movement but more than enough to show Nie Mingjue what he thinks of that brilliant deflection. 

“How about: boyfriend?” Nie Mingjue asks, sword poised, summoned by a word, sharp point against his neck. 

Meng Yao reaches up and Nie Mingjue thinks he said that bit about the sword out loud what with the way Meng Yao brushes his hand against that exact spot, but then it brushes past, and Meng Yao is pulling Nie Mingjue’s head down, pushing himself up, pressing their lips together.

It’s not as if either of them ever saw a sword they didn’t immediately try to fall on. 

The kiss is sweet enough, familiar enough, to start with. Meng Yao holds himself over Nie Mingjue’s body with nothing but the soft curve of his mouth, the pads of his fingertips pressing softly against Nie Mingjue’s shoulder. A sweet kiss, almost chaste, if you ignore how naked they both are, if you ignore the mess that is the bed around them. 

Nie Mingjue doesn’t mean to disturb Meng Yao’s delicate balance, his shoulder just twitches, all unwilling, and then Meng Yao is sprawled over Nie Mingjue, the touch of skin so distracting that Nie Mingjue barely notices the fact that he was almost brained by a wayward elbow. 

He wraps an arm around Meng Yao’s waist just as he gets his feet beneath him, gets the leverage he needs to straddle Nie Mingjue’s waist, to lift himself up and look down at Nie Mingjue lying there with his back flat pressed on the bed. Nie Mingjue rests his hands on Meng Yao’s narrow hips. He thinks, lazily, that it wouldn’t be difficult to lift him, move him around a little, get him exactly where he wants him. Meng Yao tilts his head to the side, considering him from above. Nie Mingjue thinks they’re thinking the same thing. He scratches the skin of Meng Yao’s abdomen with his thumb’s fingernail. Meng Yao’s cock twitches, in response.

“You’re like, so much taller than me,” Nie Mingjue says hoarsely, and squeezes Meng Yao’s ass a little, fingers digging in the soft flesh. 

Meng Yao laughs, surprised, again, delighted, again, half hard, again.

He kisses a bruise low on Nie Mingjue’s neck, sharp teeth and soothing tongue and when he pulls back his lips are red in the dark as if he painted them with Nie Mingjue’s blood. Nie Mingjue tries to not assign any significance to the fact that his refractory period hasn’t been this short since he was fifteen and rubbing one out every time he had five minutes to spare. He thinks he could come right then and there and still be hard a third time before long. It’s a ridiculous thought. Nie Mingjue mentally files it away for next time. 

“You should fuck me. Make up for that date that never happened,” Meng Yao whispers in Nie Mingjue’s ear, rocking back so that Nie Mingjue’s cock rubs against his ass. The sensation is enough to almost put Nie Mingjue’s wild refractory-hypothesis to the test. 

“Oh?” says Nie Mingjue, groping blindly for the bedside table, the lube, anything, refusing to take his eyes away from Meng Yao’s face. “Thought that was what the blowjob was for.” 

“I’m greedy,” Meng Yao says, then gasps as Nie Mingjue’s hand comes back, slick fingers rubbing his rim. 

“Could have at least warmed it up a little,” he adds, and “fucking brute”, and “fuck, Mingjue”, words falling out of his mouth like pearls as Nie Mingjue fucks his open with one finger, then two, making space as Meng Yao pushes against him, as he moans and whimpers and curses almost too softly for Nie Mingjue to make out the words. He catches a question, another addition to the list of things they should have talked about beforehand and not when they’re both hard and desperate for it. 

“I’ve not, I got checked--” he says in response, Meng Yao nodding into his shoulder before the words are even out of his mouth. 

“Me too, I promise, it’s been a while, just fuck me,” Meng Yao replies, pushing back against Nie Mingjue’s fingers. 

Nie Mingjue plants an elbow on the bed and pushes himself up to kiss Meng Yao quiet, swallow his moans as he wraps his free hand around his cock, gives it a stroke. 

“Can I move you?” he whispers in Meng Yao’s ear and the “yes” he gets in response is less a word and more a sharp intake of breath, a darkening of eyes, a tightening of Meng Yao’s hands on his shoulders, like he’s already braced and waiting for it.

Nie Mingjue clumsily pours some more lube on his cock, strokes himself once, wipes the excess on the bed next to them. 

Meng Yao is heavier than he expected, from this angle, his weight all on Nie Mingjue’s arms. It doesn’t matter. He lifts him easily and Meng Yao laughs with it until Nie Mingjue lowers him back down, letting gravity do the work of getting his cock inside him, fucking him open. 

“Fuck,” Nie Mingjue says, whispered against Meng Yao’s jawline. He brings a hand up to the back of Meng Yao’s head, fingers scrambling to find purchase in too-short hair, hand wrapping around the back of his neck.

“Yeah,” Meng Yao says, equally breathless but smiling. “That’s what we’re doing, I thought you--”

It’s a welcome surprise, how easily a thrust can shut him up, words melting into moans. 

Nie Mingjue gives him a moment to adjust, then thrusts again, using the hand at the back of his neck to push him down, fuck him deeper, harder. 

Meng Yao lets his head drop and Nie Mingjue kisses the sweat off his forehead, lips dragging against his hairline. 

“Lie back,” Meng Yao says, and Nie Mingjue obeys without thinking, falling back at the mattress, the motion pushing him deep inside Meng Yao. 

Meng Yao plants his hands on Nie Mingjue’s chest for leverage, lifts himself up and away on trembling thighs before falling back down, fucking himself deep on Nie Mingjue’s cock.

Nie Mingjue’s orgasm is almost a shock to him, the cresting of his pleasure both sudden and gradual enough to take him by surprise, and he comes buried deep inside Meng Yao with his name on his lips and his hand tight around Meng Yao’s cock. There’s a wetness on his face that might be sweat, buthe suspects, embarrassed, that it’s probably something else entirely. 

Sex does _not_ make Nie Mingjue cry. Usually.

“Nononononono don't you _fucking_ dare,” Meng Yao says, riding him through the orgasm, thrusting into Nie Mingjue’s fist desperately. 

Nie Mingjue tightens his hand, matching his strokes to Meng Yao’s thrusts, his free hand reaching up to wrap around the back of Meng Yao’s neck again, squeezing. 

“Come on,” Nie Mingjue says, scratching the back of Meng Yao’s neck with short fingernails. “Come for me A-Yao, I want to feel you.” 

Meng Yao’s eyes flash open, catch against his and then he’s biting back a cry and coming between them, coating Nie Mingjue’s hand and belly with it before collapsing on him bonelessly. Nie Mingjue’s cock is still buried inside him, soft and sensitive. 

Nie Mingjue twists his head, kisses the corner of Meng Yao’s lips.

“You’re staying,” he says, belatedly remembering that it should have been a question. 

Meng Yao opens an eye, looks at him, searching his face for something.

Whatever it is, he must find it. 

Nie Mingjue hopes it wasn’t anything too revealing. 

“Of course I’m staying,” Meng Yao says. “You still owe me dinner.” 

As he wraps his arms around Meng Yao, Nie Mingjue settles into the vague awareness that this whole thing shouldn’t feel as profound as it does. 

He knows vaguely that the stars are still in place, the moon and earth and sun all on their proper, preassigned places in the firmament. 

Nie Mingjue’s world feels irrevocably altered. 

As his eyes drift close he thinks that, maybe, this is way too much pressure to put on a single orgasm, no matter how good it felt. 

✿

The first time Nie Mingjue wakes up with Meng Yao in his bed, there is a ray of sunlight hitting him straight in the eyes, the curtains of his room left drawn open overnight for the first time in living memory. 

There’s an uneasy feeling in his stomach, a tightness in his hands. Sometime during the night between waking and sleeping and a shower that was less about getting them clean and more about getting Nie Mingjue on his knees on the cold tiles with his tongue inside Meng Yao, he’d managed to fall asleep on his left arm for long enough that it’s sore even now, in the light of day. He consciously unclenches his fists, and draws Meng Yao close, kissing the top of his head and curling his body around him like an open parenthesis. His mind is whirling with metaphor it is too early in the morning for. There is a metallic taste in his mouth, like blood. 

He needs to get his teeth checked again. 

Nie Mingjue blinks his eyes open, finds them wet instead of crusty with sleep and last night’s tears. He doesn’t think Meng Yao noticed him crying the previous night, or he was kind enough to not mention it if he did. He tucks his face against the top of Meng Yao’s head, breathes in the smell of his hair, his skin. 

What is the etiquette for waking up with a man who is basically a stranger in your arms? 

Nie Mingjue wants to kiss him awake, wants to fall back asleep wrapped around him but somehow staying aware the entire time so he doesn’t miss a single second of him and Meng Yao here, taking up nothing more but a corner of Nie Mingjue’s huge bed like they’ve done this before, like it’s habit to fit their bodies together like puzzle pieces. 

What felt good a second prior feels strange now. The sun is back, bright in Nie Mingjue’s eyes and his left arm is a little shaky, trapped between their bodies. He rolls away, stretching his body on the empty expanse of bed, unused all night. At least this way the sun is out of his eyes and he can stop tearing up like a child. Meng Yao grumbles something, half in sleep, his face scrunched up with it. 

It could be Nie Mingjue’s name. 

Nie Mingjue wants it, embarrassingly, to be his name. 

In the rapidly brightening day, Meng Yao looks undone in Nie Mingjue’s bed. His hair has dried like a bird’s nest after their shower, and his skin is a mess of love bites, a cartographer’s first messy draft of unfamiliar territory. Nie Mingjue looks at the twin bruises on either side of Meng Yao’s neck, reaches out and fits his hand over them. It’s always strange, the blurring of love and violence in the light of day. 

Under his hand, Meng Yao stirs, moves against Nie Mingjue’s palm, hums something that could be good morning, could be a pleased sound, or a pained one. 

Nie Mingjue squeezes his neck a little before rolling close to him again and kissing the soft skin behind his ear. 

“Morning,” he says. 

Meng Yao frowns, brow furrowed, eyes still shut. The sun turns every inch of skin it touches to liquid gold. 

Nie Mingjue wants to see him decked in jewelry. His mouth is dry. He nips at the lobe of Meng Yao’s ear, gently, with his teeth.

“You’re insatiable,” Meng Yao says, although Nie Mingjue has been very carefully keeping his hips turned away, has not pulled Meng Yao close, has not rutted against him like a part of him wants to, still hard and aching despite the night’s excesses. At least he sounds pleased, like Nie Mingjue’s want is a source of joy, something to take pleasure in and not to suffer through. 

Nie Mingjue didn’t know how much he feared being suffered through until now. 

He twists his body, fits himself against Meng Yao’s back and smiles when Meng Yao gasps at the touch. 

When he lets his hand find its way to Meng Yao’s cock he finds him soft, coaxes him to hardness with nothing but a couple of dry strokes, with open mouthed kisses and the drag of his moustache against the previous night’s marks. 

Meng Yao reaches back, arm awkwardly reaching out to pull him closer and Nie Mingjue allows himself to be pulled, grinds against the curve of Meng Yao’s ass, precome making it almost but not quite slick enough. Nie Mingjue is surprised at how much he loves the burn of it. He pants with his lips dragging against the back of Meng Yao’s neck. Almost wrecked. _Definitely_ desperate. 

He brings his hand to Meng Yao’s mouth and Meng Yao opens immediately. He takes two fingers into his mouth and Nie Mingjue regrets not facing him now, wishes he could see the way his fingers disappear inside Meng Yao’s mouth better, wishes he could see the way his lips stretch around him, spit slick and red like a knife wound. 

The head of his cock catches on Meng Yao’s rim. He pushes against it a little before he can stop himself. Meng Yao bites his fingers, hard, in either surprise or retaliation, and the unexpected stab of pain is like an electric shock straight to Nie Mingjue’s dick. 

“Fuck, Meng Yao,” he pants against soft skin. 

“Don’t you dare come yet,” Meng Yao says, pulling Nie Mingjue’s hand out of his mouth and down, to finally wrap around his dick. “Get me off first.” 

“Bossy,” Nie Mingjue replies as if he’s not already following the instruction, Meng Yao’s cock hot and hard in the circle of his fist. 

“You’re into it,” Meng Yao says, almost laughing which means Nie Mingjue is _definitely_ not doing his job right. 

“I am,” he says. He twists his wrist for the sake of emphasis, and swallows Meng Yao’s answering moan with his mouth.

“You,” Meng Yao says again, when Nie Mingjue pulls back to breathe. The laughter is gone. His voice sounds breathless and wrecked, something of a victory if not the full thing. Not yet. Nie Mingjue intends to have all of Meng Yao, wring him dry, take everything he has to give.

“Fuck, Mingjue, you want to fuck me so bad it’s making you stupid.”

“Yeah,” Nie Mingjue says, honesty punched out of him by want. “I do, I want you all the fucking time.” 

Meng Yao’s body tenses at that and he comes with a hollow cry, shuddering under Nie Mingjue’s hand like something precious and easy to break.He twists his head to catch Nie Mingjue’s lips with his and Nie Mingjue kisses back, stroking him through the aftershocks of his orgasm until Meng Yao bites his lip hard enough to draw blood, nails digging into the meat of his thigh. Nie Mingjue rocks against him and comes so hard the world around him disappears for a second, until there’s nothing but him and Meng Yao, pressed tightly together from all sides, in the inescapable dark. 

When he comes to, a second or an hour or a lifetime later, he’s still holding Meng Yao tightly against his chest, sticky and gross in his room that smells like sex and sweat and both of them together. 

He inhales deeply, exhales with a sigh against Meng Yao’s skin that makes him squirm, ticklish.

Forgotten on the kitchen table, Nie Mingjue’s phone flashes with a text notification from Nie Huaisang. _Call me when you see this. URGENT!!!_

“We should probably get up,” Meng Yao says, and Nie Mingjue smiles at how regretful he sounds. 

“Probably,” he says. 

They do not move. 

For now. 


End file.
